THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES(Page 9)

The Sunday following, the little boy took something,
and wrapped it up in a piece of paper, went downstairs,
and stood in the doorway; and when the man who went
on errands came past, he said to him—
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‘I say, master! will you give this to the old man over
the way from me? I have two pewter soldiers—this is one
of them, and he shall have it, for I know he is so very,
very lonely.’
And the old errand man looked quite pleased, nodded,
and took the pewter soldier over to the old house.
Afterwards there came a message; it was to ask if the little
boy himself had not a wish to come over and pay a visit;
and so he got permission of his parents, and then went
over to the old house.
And the brass balls on the iron railings shone much
brighter than ever; one would have thought they were
polished on account of the visit; and it was as if the
carved-out trumpeters-for there were trumpeters, who
stood in tulips, carved out on the door—blew with all
their might, their cheeks appeared so much rounder than
before. Yes, they blew—‘Trateratra! The little boy comes!
Trateratra!’—and then the door opened.

The whole passage was hung with portraits of knights
in armor, and ladies in silken gowns; and the armor rattled,
and the silken gowns rustled! And then there was a flight
of stairs which went a good way upwards, and a little way
downwards, and then one came on a balcony which was
in a very dilapidated state, sure enough, with large holes
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and long crevices, but grass grew there and leaves out of
them altogether, for the whole balcony outside, the yard,
and the walls, were overgrown with so much green stuff,
that it looked like a garden; only a balcony. Here stood
old flower-pots with faces and asses’ ears, and the flowers
grew just as they liked. One of the pots was quite overrun
on all sides with pinks, that is to say, with the green part;
shoot stood by shoot, and it said quite distinctly, ‘The air
has cherished me, the sun has kissed me, and promised me
a little flower on Sunday! a little flower on Sunday!’
And then they entered a chamber where the walls were
covered with hog’s leather, and printed with gold flowers.
‘The gilding decays,
But hog’s leather stays!’
said the walls.
And there stood easy-chairs, with such high backs, and
so carved out, and with arms on both sides. ‘Sit down! sit
down!’ said they. ‘Ugh! how I creak; now I shall certainly
get the gout, like the old clothespress, ugh!’
And then the little boy came into the room where the
projecting windows were, and where the old man sat.
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‘I thank you for the pewter soldier, my little friend!’
said the old man. ‘And I thank you because you come
over to me.’
‘Thankee! thankee!’ or ‘cranky! cranky!’ sounded from
all the furniture; there was so much of it, that each article
stood in the other’s way, to get a look at the little boy.
In the middle of the wall hung a picture representing a
beautiful lady, so young, so glad, but dressed quite as in
former times, with clothes that stood quite stiff, and with
powder in her hair; she neither said ‘thankee, thankee!’
nor ‘cranky, cranky!’ but looked with her mild eyes at the
little boy, who directly asked the old man, ‘Where did
you get her?’
‘Yonder, at the broker’s,’ said the old man, ‘where
there are so many pictures hanging. No one knows or
cares about them, for they are all of them buried; but I
knew her in by-gone days, and now she has been dead and
gone these fifty years!’
Under the picture, in a glazed frame, there hung a
bouquet of withered flowers; they were almost fifty years
old; they looked so very old!
The pendulum of the great clock went to and fro, and
the hands turned, and everything in the room became still
older; but they did not observe it.
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‘They say at home,’ said the little boy, ‘that you are so
very, very lonely!’
‘Oh!’ said he. ‘The old thoughts, with what they may
bring with them, come and visit me, and now you also
come! I am very well off!’
Then he took a book with pictures in it down from the
shelf; there were whole long processions and pageants,
with the strangest characters, which one never sees now-adays;
soldiers like the knave of clubs, and citizens with
waving flags: the tailors had theirs, with a pair of shears
held by two lions—and the shoemakers theirs, without
boots, but with an eagle that had two heads, for the
shoemakers must have everything so that they can say, it is
a pair! Yes, that was a picture book!
The old man now went into the other room to fetch
preserves, apples, and nuts—yes, it was delightful over
there in the old house.
‘I cannot bear it any longer!’ said the pewter soldier,
who sat on the drawers. ‘It is so lonely and melancholy
here! But when one has been in a family circle one cannot
accustom oneself to this life! I cannot bear it any longer!
The whole day is so long, and the evenings are still longer!
Here it is not at all as it is over the way at your home,
where your father and mother spoke so pleasantly, and
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where you and all your sweet children made such a
delightful noise. Nay, how lonely the old man is—do you
think that he gets kisses? Do you think he gets mild eyes,
or a Christmas tree? He will get nothing but a grave! I can
bear it no longer!’
‘You must not let it grieve you so much,’ said the little
boy. ‘I find it so very delightful here, and then all the old
thoughts, with what they may bring with them, they
come and visit here.’
‘Yes, it’s all very well, but I see nothing of them, and I
don’t know them!’ said the pewter soldier. ‘I cannot bear
it!’
‘But you must!’ said the little boy.
Then in came the old man with the most pleased and
happy face, the most delicious preserves, apples, and nuts,
and so the little boy thought no more about the pewter
soldier.
The little boy returned home happy and pleased, and
weeks and days passed away, and nods were made to the
old house, and from the old house, and then the little boy
went over there again.
The carved trumpeters blew, ‘Trateratra! There is the
little boy! Trateratra!’ and the swords and armor on the
knights’ portraits rattled, and the silk gowns rustled; the
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hog’s leather spoke, and the old chairs had the gout in
their legs and rheumatism in their backs: Ugh! it was
exactly like the first time, for over there one day and hour
was just like another.
‘I cannot bear it!’ said the pewter soldier. ‘I have shed
pewter tears! It is too melancholy! Rather let me go to the
wars and lose arms and legs! It would at least be a change.
I cannot bear it longer! Now, I know what it is to have a
visit from one’s old thoughts, with what they may bring
with them! I have had a visit from mine, and you may be
sure it is no pleasant thing in the end; I was at last about to
jump down from the drawers.
‘I saw you all over there at home so distinctly, as if you
really were here; it was again that Sunday morning; all you
children stood before the table and sung your Psalms, as
you do every morning. You stood devoutly with folded
hands; and father and mother were just as pious; and then
the door was opened, and little sister Mary, who is not
two years old yet, and who always dances when she hears
music or singing, of whatever kind it may be, was put into
the room—though she ought not to have been there—and
then she began to dance, but could not keep time, because
the tones were so long; and then she stood, first on the
one leg, and bent her head forwards, and then on the
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other leg, and bent her head forwards—but all would not
do. You stood very seriously all together, although it was
difficult enough; but I laughed to myself, and then I fell
off the table, and got a bump, which I have still—for it
was not right of me to laugh. But the whole now passes
before me again in thought, and everything that I have
lived to see; and these are the old thoughts, with what
they may bring with them.
‘Tell me if you still sing on Sundays? Tell me
something about little Mary! And how my comrade, the
other pewter soldier, lives! Yes, he is happy enough, that’s
sure! I cannot bear it any longer!’
‘You are given away as a present!’ said the little boy.
‘You must remain. Can you not understand that?’
The old man now came with a drawer, in which there
was much to be seen, both ‘tin boxes’ and ‘balsam boxes,’
old cards, so large and so gilded, such as one never sees
them now. And several drawers were opened, and the
piano was opened; it had landscapes on the inside of the
lid, and it was so hoarse when the old man played on it!
and then he hummed a song.
‘Yes, she could sing that!’ said he, and nodded to the
portrait, which he had bought at the broker’s, and the old
man’s eyes shone so bright!
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‘I will go to the wars! I will go to the wars!’ shouted
the pewter soldier as loud as he could, and threw himself
off the drawers right down on the floor. What became of
him? The old man sought, and the little boy sought; he
was away, and he stayed away.
‘I shall find him!’ said the old man; but he never found
him. The floor was too open—the pewter soldier had
fallen through a crevice, and there he lay as in an open
tomb.
That day passed, and the little boy went home, and that
week passed, and several weeks too. The windows were
quite frozen, the little boy was obliged to sit and breathe
on them to get a peep-hole over to the old house, and
there the snow had been blown into all the carved work
and inscriptions; it lay quite up over the steps, just as if
there was no one at home—nor was there any one at
home—the old man was dead!
In the evening there was a hearse seen before the door,
and he was borne into it in his coffin: he was now to go
out into the country, to lie in his grave. He was driven out
there, but no one followed; all his friends were dead, and
the little boy kissed his hand to the coffin as it was driven
away.
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Some days afterwards there was an auction at the old
house, and the little boy saw from his window how they
carried the old knights and the old ladies away, the flowerpots
with the long ears, the old chairs, and the old clothespresses.
Something came here, and something came there;
the portrait of her who had been found at the broker’s
came to the broker’s again; and there it hung, for no one
knew her more—no one cared about the old picture.
In the spring they pulled the house down, for, as
people said, it was a ruin. One could see from the street
right into the room with the hog’s-leather hanging, which
was slashed and torn; and the green grass and leaves about
the balcony hung quite wild about the falling beams. And
then it was put to rights.
‘That was a relief,’ said the neighboring houses.
A fine house was built there, with large windows, and
smooth white walls; but before it, where the old house
had in fact stood, was a little garden laid out, and a wild
grapevine ran up the wall of the neighboring house.
Before the garden there was a large iron railing with an
iron door, it looked quite splendid, and people stood still
and peeped in, and the sparrows hung by scores in the
vine, and chattered away at each other as well as they
could, but it was not about the old house, for they could
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not remember it, so many years had passed—so many that
the little boy had grown up to a whole man, yes, a clever
man, and a pleasure to his parents; and he had just been
married, and, together with his little wife, had come to
live in the house here, where the garden was; and he stood
by her there whilst she planted a field-flower that she
found so pretty; she planted it with her little hand, and
pressed the earth around it with her fingers. Oh! what was
that? She had stuck herself. There sat something pointed,
straight out of the soft mould.
It was—yes, guess! It was the pewter soldier, he that
was lost up at the old man’s, and had tumbled and turned
about amongst the timber and the rubbish, and had at last
laid for many years in the ground.
The young wife wiped the dirt off the soldier, first with
a green leaf, and then with her fine handkerchief—it had
such a delightful smell, that it was to the pewter soldier
just as if he had awaked from a trance.
‘Let me see him,’ said the young man. He laughed, and
then shook his head. ‘Nay, it cannot be he; but he reminds
me of a story about a pewter soldier which I had when I
was a little boy!’ And then he told his wife about the old
house, and the old man, and about the pewter soldier that
he sent over to him because he was so very, very lonely;
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and he told it as correctly as it had really been, so that the
tears came into the eyes of his young wife, on account of
the old house and the old man.
‘It may possibly be, however, that it is the same pewter
soldier!’ said she. ‘I will take care of it, and remember all
that you have told me; but you must show me the old
man’s grave!’
‘But I do not know it,’ said he, ‘and no one knows it!
All his friends were dead, no one took care of it, and I was
then a little boy!’
‘How very, very lonely he must have been!’ said she.
‘Very, very lonely!’ said the pewter soldier. ‘But it is
delightful not to be forgotten!’
‘Delightful!’ shouted something close by; but no one,
except the pewter soldier, saw that it was a piece of the
hog’s-leather hangings; it had lost all its gilding, it looked
like a piece of wet clay, but it had an opinion, and it gave
it:
‘The gilding decays,
But hog’s leather stays!’
This the pewter soldier did not believe.
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THE HAPPY FAMILY
Really, the largest green leaf in this country is a
dockleaf; if one holds it before one, it is like a whole
apron, and if one holds it over one’s head in rainy
weather, it is almost as good as an umbrella, for it is so
immensely large. The burdock never grows alone, but
where there grows one there always grow several: it is a
great delight, and all this delightfulness is snails’ food. The
great white snails which persons of quality in former times
made fricassees of, ate, and said, ‘Hem, hem! how
delicious!’ for they thought it tasted so delicate—lived on
dockleaves, and therefore burdock seeds were sown.
Now, there was an old manor-house, where they no
longer ate snails, they were quite extinct; but the burdocks
were not extinct, they grew and grew all over the walks
and all the beds; they could not get the mastery over
them—it was a whole forest of burdocks. Here and there
stood an apple and a plum-tree, or else one never would
have thought that it was a garden; all was burdocks, and
there lived the two last venerable old snails.
They themselves knew not how old they were, but
they could remember very well that there had been many
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more; that they were of a family from foreign lands, and
that for them and theirs the whole forest was planted.
They had never been outside it, but they knew that there
was still something more in the world, which was called
the manor-house, and that there they were boiled, and
then they became black, and were then placed on a silver
dish; but what happened further they knew not; or, in
fact, what it was to be boiled, and to lie on a silver dish,
they could not possibly imagine; but it was said to be
delightful, and particularly genteel. Neither the chafers,
the toads, nor the earth-worms, whom they asked about it
could give them any information—none of them had been
boiled or laid on a silver dish.
The old white snails were the first persons of distinction
in the world, that they knew; the forest was planted for
their sake, and the manor-house was there that they might
be boiled and laid on a silver dish.
Now they lived a very lonely and happy life; and as
they had no children themselves, they had adopted a little
common snail, which they brought up as their own; but
the little one would not grow, for he was of a common
family; but the old ones, especially Dame Mother Snail,
thought they could observe how he increased in size, and
she begged father, if he could not see it, that he would at
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least feel the little snail’s shell; and then he felt it, and
found the good dame was right.
One day there was a heavy storm of rain.
‘Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock-leaves!’ said
Father Snail.
‘There are also rain-drops!’ said Mother Snail. ‘And
now the rain pours right down the stalk! You will see that
it will be wet here! I am very happy to think that we have
our good house, and the little one has his also! There is
more done for us than for all other creatures, sure enough;
but can you not see that we are folks of quality in the
world? We are provided with a house from our birth, and
the burdock forest is planted for our sakes! I should like to
know how far it extends, and what there is outside!’
‘There is nothing at all,’ said Father Snail. ‘No place
can be better than ours, and I have nothing to wish for!’
‘Yes,’ said the dame. ‘I would willingly go to the
manorhouse, be boiled, and laid on a silver dish; all our
forefathers have been treated so; there is something
extraordinary in it, you may be sure!’
‘The manor-house has most likely fallen to ruin!’ said
Father Snail. ‘Or the burdocks have grown up over it, so
that they cannot come out. There need not, however, be
any haste about that; but you are always in such a
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tremendous hurry, and the little one is beginning to be the
same. Has he not been creeping up that stalk these three
days? It gives me a headache when I look up to him!’
‘You must not scold him,’ said Mother Snail. ‘He
creeps so carefully; he will afford us much pleasure—and
we have nothing but him to live for! But have you not
thought of it? Where shall we get a wife for him? Do you
not think that there are some of our species at a great
distance in the interior of the burdock forest?’
‘Black snails, I dare say, there are enough of,’ said the
old one. ‘Black snails without a house—but they are so
common, and so conceited. But we might give the ants a
commission to look out for us; they run to and fro as if
they had something to do, and they certainly know of a
wife for our little snail!’
‘I know one, sure enough—the most charming one!’
said one of the ants. ‘But I am afraid we shall hardly
succeed, for she is a queen!’
‘That is nothing!’ said the old folks. ‘Has she a house?’
‘She has a palace!’ said the ant. ‘The finest ant’s palace,
with seven hundred passages!’
‘I thank you!’ said Mother Snail. ‘Our son shall not go
into an ant-hill; if you know nothing better than that, we
shall give the commission to the white gnats. They fly far
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and wide, in rain and sunshine; they know the whole
forest here, both within and without.’
‘We have a wife for him,’ said the gnats. ‘At a hundred
human paces from here there sits a little snail in her house,
on a gooseberry bush; she is quite lonely, and old enough
to be married. It is only a hundred human paces!’
‘Well, then, let her come to him!’ said the old ones.
‘He has a whole forest of burdocks, she has only a bush!’
And so they went and fetched little Miss Snail. It was a
whole week before she arrived; but therein was just the
very best of it, for one could thus see that she was of the
same species.
And then the marriage was celebrated. Six earth-worms
shone as well as they could. In other respects the whole
went off very quietly, for the old folks could not bear
noise and merriment; but old Dame Snail made a brilliant
speech. Father Snail could not speak, he was too much
affected; and so they gave them as a dowry and
inheritance, the whole forest of burdocks, and said—what
they had always said—that it was the best in the world;
and if they lived honestly and decently, and increased and
multiplied, they and their children would once in the
course of time come to the manor-house, be boiled black,
and laid on silver dishes. After this speech was made, the
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old ones crept into their shells, and never more came out.
They slept; the young couple governed in the forest, and
had a numerous progeny, but they were never boiled, and
never came on the silver dishes; so from this they
concluded that the manor-house had fallen to ruins, and
that all the men in the world were extinct; and as no one
contradicted them, so, of course it was so. And the rain
beat on the dock-leaves to make drum-music for their
sake, and the sun shone in order to give the burdock forest
a color for their sakes; and they were very happy, and the
whole family was happy; for they, indeed were so.
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THE STORY OF A MOTHER
A mother sat there with her little child. She was so
downcast, so afraid that it should die! It was so pale, the
small eyes had closed themselves, and it drew its breath so
softly, now and then, with a deep respiration, as if it
sighed; and the mother looked still more sorrowfully on
the little creature.
Then a knocking was heard at the door, and in came a
poor old man wrapped up as in a large horse-cloth, for it
warms one, and he needed it, as it was the cold winter
season! Everything out-of doors was covered with ice and
snow, and the wind blew so that it cut the face.
As the old man trembled with cold, and the little child
slept a moment, the mother went and poured some ale
into a pot and set it on the stove, that it might be warm
for him; the old man sat and rocked the cradle, and the
mother sat down on a chair close by him, and looked at
her little sick child that drew its breath so deep, and raised
its little hand.
‘Do you not think that I shall save him?’ said she. ‘Our
Lord will not take him from me!’
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And the old man—it was Death himself—he nodded so
strangely, it could just as well signify yes as no. And the
mother looked down in her lap, and the tears ran down
over her cheeks; her head became so heavy—she had not
closed her eyes for three days and nights; and now she
slept, but only for a minute, when she started up and
trembled with cold.
‘What is that?’ said she, and looked on all sides; but the
old man was gone, and her little child was gone—he had
taken it with him; and the old clock in the corner burred,
and burred, the great leaden weight ran down to the floor,
bump! and then the clock also stood still.
But the poor mother ran out of the house and cried
aloud for her child.
Out there, in the midst of the snow, there sat a woman
in long, black clothes; and she said, ‘Death has been in thy
chamber, and I saw him hasten away with thy little child;
he goes faster than the wind, and he never brings back
what he takes!’
‘Oh, only tell me which way he went!’ said the
mother. ‘Tell me the way, and I shall find him!’
‘I know it!’ said the woman in the black clothes. ‘But
before I tell it, thou must first sing for me all the songs
thou hast sung for thy child! I am fond of them. I have
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heard them before; I am Night; I saw thy tears whilst thou
sang’st them!’
‘I will sing them all, all!’ said the mother. ‘But do not
stop me now—I may overtake him—I may find my child!’
But Night stood still and mute. Then the mother
wrung her hands, sang and wept, and there were many
songs, but yet many more tears; and then Night said, ‘Go
to the right, into the dark pine forest; thither I saw Death
take his way with thy little child!’
The roads crossed each other in the depths of the
forest, and she no longer knew whither she should go!
then there stood a thorn-bush; there was neither leaf nor
flower on it, it was also in the cold winter season, and iceflakes
hung on the branches.
‘Hast thou not seen Death go past with my little child?’
said the mother.
‘Yes,’ said the thorn-bush; ‘but I will not tell thee
which way he took, unless thou wilt first warm me up at
thy heart. I am freezing to death; I shall become a lump of
ice!’